


tenets of becoming

by imgonebye



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/F, Lots of Angst, a real mess, i think this is what the kids call 'hurt/comfort', the force is super deus ex machina but i think that's canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgonebye/pseuds/imgonebye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phasma purses her lips. Rey realizes with some discomfort that she has a light dusting of freckles across her skin, darkest and most concentrated over the bridge of her nose. She is chrome and chrome and then flesh, and try as she might, Rey cannot reconcile the two; she can’t look Phasma in the eye and think of her as evil, nor can she look at Phasma’s armor and think of her as human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tenets of becoming

one.

It takes a certain level of surety to trust your instincts, and Rey is _positive_ there is something amiss aboard the Millennium Falcon. It’s not the emptiness where Han Solo ought to be—she feels that pang, that seasickness in her chest—but something too wholly present. There ought to be more noise from the hold, as Han’s dubious cargo settles and the living bits figure out what is edible and what is poison. Instead there is silence, not even so much as a creaking crate or the grate of metal on metal as something badly secured slams from shipment to shipment, doing costly damage.

BB-8 beeps sharply at her. _Something’s WRONG_.

“I know,” she says. “I can feel it.”

Nothing comes up on the monitors, but stillness doesn’t mean absence—she learned that on Jakku, and not always the easy way. It just means she isn’t looking hard enough. What she does now is cast outside herself, taking those spots of power in her eyes and ears and forcing them downward toward the hold.

It works. That always surprises her. The main compartment of the hold is dark and quiet, like everything inside is holding its collective breath. Three bulbs hang on thin wires from the ceiling; one is shattered and the other two are dim. Their light reveals nothing, and she thinks she might just be paranoid—

 _There!_ A glint of—

She feels her heart sinking all the way up in the cockpit. A glint of chrome.

Rey does not know how, but she knows the chrome figure can feel her presence. Captain Phasma’s helmeted head turns in her direction, and she steps out from behind a stack of crates that served to block her from the security cameras.

When Rey steps back into herself, her limbs are weak with fear.

“Chewie,” she whispers, sounding braver than she feels. “We’ve got company.”

Chewbacca barely has the time to yowl a confused _What?_ in reply before she bolts from the cockpit, one hand slamming the door controls while the other is clasped around the cool metal hilt of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.

Phasma moves quickly; she is already there. Chewie, just seconds behind her, stop dead in his tracks.

Rey’s first thought is that the Millennium Falcon will be recovered sometime in the next eon and those who step foot onboard will wonder at the dessicated flesh, the splatter of viscera, the lightsaber fallen uselessly to the floor. They will wonder what went so wrong here that a Jedi fell. _Not even a full Jedi! Not even my own lightsaber!_

So Rey reaches outside herself again. She is hopelessly outclassed in physical combat, she knows; even with Luke’s lightsaber, she doubts she has any chance against Phasma’s sheer bulk and most likely considerable fighting skill. So she grasps what she knows Phasma does not have.

It feels like the Force whispers to her, as some unseen, unfamiliar voice in her ear tells her to pull it inside herself. Rey feels it in her veins like water, which is thinner and far more valuable than blood; she feels it in her muscles, like inertia and exhaustion but also like liquid—if she moved her leg, she thinks, she could move anything between the stars.

She finds it odd that Phasma has not pulled her blaster or even moved at all, but Rey will not let curiosity make her stupid.

“Don’t attack us,” she orders Phasma. The command feels like a jolt of electricity, and she knows instinctively that it will be followed. It must be. Each word reverberates through every atom in Phasma’s body, entwining itself in the very fabric of her being. The order becomes integral, inexorable.

“Define ‘us’,” Phasma replies cooly.

Rey starts. She can feel the control she has on Phasma, and no resistance on Phasma’s part (but it is unclear whether that is because she cannot or will not resist). But nevertheless—

“Don’t move, then,” she says.

“What about breathing and speaking?”

“Those are fine,” Rey snaps. “Don’t attack anyone on this ship—me, Finn, Chewie, the droids—and don’t attempt to take control of the ship or send a message anywhere.”

“I will not move,” Phasma says. A pause, and then she abridges Rey’s second command: “I will follow your other specifications.”

It’s almost funny, except Rey is both too surprised and worried for humor.

Chewie shifts beside her, and she can feel the energy coursing through him, thrumming momentum, cultivated strength; she’s smaller than he is, but right now she knows that she could make that energy her own or extinguish it entirely. Even Finn’s unconscious form pulses with energy. Recalling his fear of the First Order, Rey is half-glad he can’t see Phasma now. “Don’t shoot,” she whispers, feeling the Wookie’s claw inching toward the trigger of his crossbow. He stills with a whine.

Is this what it feels like? Is this what it feels like to be Kylo Ren, or Luke Skywalker? Is this what it feels like to be Rey? There’s something wrong about this, something unsettling. It was so simple to make the stormtrooper free her and surrender his weapon, despite his lifetime of conditioning that _had_ to have been screaming at him to do just the opposite. Would it have been just as easy to make him shoot himself in the head?

She shouldn’t use this. She should be better than them, right?

What Rey remembers now is what Finn said to her, all those light-years away on Takodana: how it was the look in her eyes that had struck him most. Being recognized as being, as _kin_. She doesn’t think she can save Phasma with a single gaze—that would be childish, and she is no longer a child—but can she change something in her? Remind her of her personhood?

She should let Phasma choose, _except_ that is a genuinely terrible idea and the kind of thing that gets a person killed.

What Rey would like most is a few days to weigh her options and come to terms with this massive ethical burden that has apparently been lying dormant in her for her entire life, but she doesn’t even have minutes. And this is only a small thing, after all. Surely it’s fine to just ask small, harmless things?

“Take off your helmet,” she says, and feels the impulses jump from her arms to Phasma’s.

There is a moment’s pause, then Phasma begins to move. “I will take off my helmet,” she says flatly. Her arms glint dully in the patchy light, washing shadow and highlight as she reaches around to the back of her head. There is a metallic snap, then a quiet pop. The sound of fabric on fabric.

Rey realizes she is barely breathing and blinks just to make sure she can.

When Phasma removes her helmet, Rey blinks again.

Her first articulated thought is of gold; not the dull, coarse gold shade of desert sands but the burnished, shimmering metal that wealthy traders would sometimes wear in abundance when they passed through Jakku. Before that, she thinks something along the lines of _Huh_.

Kylo Ren made sense, with his overgrown dark hair and somber face. He looked like the kind of man who enjoyed the anonymity of a helmet, of being a faceless mystery. When Phasma takes her helmet off, even before she takes it in one hand and props it above the empty holster on her hip, she tosses her head, loosening and slightly tousling her bright blonde hair so that it isn’t held helmet-tight to her skull.

Chewie makes a soft, startled sound behind her.

Phasma’s eyes, shrouded in halflight, are big and blue. Her nose is pointed and flares wide, slightly off-center like it has been broken before. Or maybe it has always been that way. Her mouth curves slightly upward, and Rey can’t help but think she would have been such a happy-looking woman if she had been allowed a normal life. Her hair is blonde and short, parted to the side so that she has a long, wavy fringe that falls over part of her face and into her eyes without the helmet to hold it back. She has a pale scar running parallel to her cupid’s bow that traverses the fullness of her lower lip but does not disrupt that unconscious smile’s curve, and another that is more of a hollow over one pale, slanted eyebrow. The color is most disconcerting: bright blue, gleaming gold, the warm, pigmented pink of her lips.

And Rey isn’t sure where to go next.

There is no revelation to be had here; maybe if Phasma had been ugly, or dour, she would have known what to do. But the evil Captain’s eyes are blue and limpid and not as blank and cold as they ought to be. Rey has never seen ice as blue as them (for she has not seen much ice at all), but she has seen lakes, and this blueness reminds her of warmth and life.

“What would happen if you returned to the First Order?” she asks at length, slipping the command out of her tone.

“Impossible,” Phasma says, and her voice is slightly higher and cleaner without the helmet’s added gravitas. “There is nothing to return to.”

“Some of the leaders must’ve survived. What if you rejoined them?”

“Conjecture is pointless,” Phasma answers flatly. “It is too far from reality to matter.”

“Would you be killed?” Rey presses the point, half-reaching for the command she felt earlier, ready to make Phasma answer. This monotone flatness sparks her anger—and her fear—in its inhumanity. BB-8 has more emotional range! Was Finn once like this? And, more importantly, what does it take to make a person like this? Rey has lived alone for most of her life, eking a living out of a desert that has claimed far more powerful things than her, struggling for food and water in an economy of competition and enmity. What does it take to become like Phasma?

Phasma’s eyebrows quirk up and furrow slightly as she regards Rey. “Most likely,” she replies at length. “I failed to protect the Order and placed my own life above my objective.” She pauses, giving Rey time to struggle for another question, then continues. “Otherwise I would be reconditioned.”

Her gaze is impassive, but Rey thinks she can see something in it—a confusion, a lack of surety. Rey herself is confused, because this is the third time she’s so closely encountered a stormtrooper, and the fabled conditioning doesn’t seem as binding as she has heard.

“Why did you protect your life? Isn’t that against your—your conditioning?”

Phasma purses her lips. Rey realizes with some discomfort that she has a light dusting of freckles across her skin, darkest and most concentrated over the bridge of her nose. She is chrome and chrome and then flesh, and try as she might, Rey cannot reconcile the two; she can’t look Phasma in the eye and think of her as evil, nor can she look at Phasma’s armor and think of her as human.

“I have no idea,” Phasma says finally. “I chose life. But I had faith in my troops—a trust which was clearly misplaced.”

 _Clearly_ , Chewie growls. But he, too, sounds less sure in his hate now.

“Why were you on our ship then?”

“I planned to capture the craft and any who might return to it,” Phasma replies, this time without hesitation. “I needed to do something of worth after my failure. I had just secured the craft when the explosions began.” She pauses again. What is strangest about her pauses is that her gaze never shifts, nor does her expression change; she stops then begins again without giving so much as a hint about her thought process. For all her hopes and half-glimpses of possible, fleeting emotions buried deep in Phasma’s eyes, Rey knows she would have as much luck guessing her thoughts with the helmet still on as without. “They shook the planet.”

Rey can’t stop the corners of her mouth from quirking up into the slightest smile, so she doesn’t. Maybe it will do Phasma some good, she thinks, to see a smile. To see some real emotion that isn’t rage or fear. “So you chose life again?”

A muscle visibly twitches in Phasma’s jaw. “I chose not to die,” she says stolidly. “There was nothing to be gained by returning but defeat.”

Rey makes up her mind, seeing the pulse of embarrassment in Phasma’s face and the way she now breaks eye contact to stare at the floor, thick pale eyelashes downcast. She grasps at the voice of command again. “Don’t attack us,” she says to Phasma.

“I will not attack you,” comes the monotone reply.

Turning so the three of them can huddle, partially shielding their conversation from Phasma, Rey says, “Let’s send a message to the Resistance. Can we do that, Chewie?”

Chewbacca growls. _What are we going to say?_

“Tell them we’ve got a prisoner,” Rey says. “And tell them she’s the reason we got the shields down.”

 _Only because we made her!_ He turns to her with a look of hurt incredulity.

“Please,” Rey says. She leans in closer so she can look him in the eye, because she knows it will make a difference. “I don’t want any more death today.”

“I will _not_ lie to ingratiate myself to the Resistance,” Phasma snaps from behind them.

Rey turns to see Phasma in the same place, in the same position, gaze fixed on Rey like it always has been. “Yeah,” she says with a grin. “You will. ‘Cause you’re going to choose life again.” When Phasma frowns slightly, she knows she is right. “And when we land, you can leave your helmet on.”

Phasma almost looks gratified.

two.

“We are _not_ ,” General Organa says firmly, “resorting to torture.”

“The First Order would—”

“Then you should have joined their ranks!” Organa only rolls her eyes when the officer blanches at her words. “We are not torturing a captive, especially considering the current state of their forces!”

“She might have information about their plans, General,” he replies reproachfully.

Organa stops in her tracks. Rey is relieved by this; the general might be small, but she sets a grueling pace that has proven a struggle to match. “Whatever her rank might be, she’s still a trooper. She’s disposable to the cause, even more than Ben or Hux are. Whatever she knows, it wasn’t anything more than she needed to know to do her job. I won’t have her tortured just to prove myself right.”

She sets off again. Rey lengthens her stride while the captain drops away from them, looking annoyed. “Um, General Organa?”

“None of that. Call me Leia,” Organa— _Leia_ —replies. “Yes, I did call you down here for a reason. Phasma keeps insisting on speaking to you and no one else, if she has to speak at all.”

“About what?”

“We’re trying to figure out what to do about her, frankly. I want to know whether or not she’s been ordered to come here somehow, or if she’s really here of her own volition. You don’t have to talk to her, but I wanted to be sure you knew.”

“I’d—yeah,” Rey says. “I’d be fine with that. I don’t know how much I can get out of her though.”

“Well—and again, this is entirely up to you—I’m sure you’re familiar with a certain interrogation technique using the Force—”

“What Kylo Ren did?”

“Yes,” Leia says with a slight frown. “I don’t like the idea of it, but I can’t think of many other ways to get the truth out of someone that aren’t _absolutely evil._ ” She throws a scathing glance back at the captain’s retreating form.

“I’ve never done that before,” Rey admits, “but I could try. I don’t mind going to see her.”

“There’s another thing, too,” Leia says. “Between you and me for now, because I’m seeing a slightly trigger-happy attitude in my officers that I don’t like.”

“Um,” Rey says. “Are you sure you should be telling me then?”

“You’re our Jedi,” Leia says. “Jedi-in-training, whatever. This is how it has always operated. If you can’t be trusted, then we’re doomed from the outset.” At Rey’s tentative nod, she continues. “I hear she broke her conditioning. That’s two troopers now. If we can find a way to make that happen, we’d be able to defeat their forces when they rise again with minimal bloodshed. And I’m sure you’re feeling the same way I do about the large-scale slaughter of people who have been brainwashed to kill.”

“Yes,” Rey says, nodding emphatically.

“Good. So you’re okay then? Anything else? I’ll assemble a guard to go with you.”

“Um. Why are you telling me so much?”

“Like I said,” Leia says, “You’re our Jedi. You may not feel like it now, but a well-placed Jedi is more powerful than any other weapon. If I can’t trust you, it doesn’t matter what I tell you; you’ll likely figure it out anyway. I like you, but at a certain point it goes beyond that. War is war, and you’re too strategically important to waste.”

Rey likes that—she likes that more than anything she could have imagined Leia would say. It’s neat and practical and comes with an appropriate amount of fondness. “Thanks,” she says with a smile.

Leia gives her a real smile back, and pats her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under better circumstances,” she says. “You and Luke would have been fast friends, I can feel it.”

When Rey turns to go, Leia grasps her by the shoulder again. “Also—get her to take off that armor. I want to have it analyzed. And it wouldn’t hurt to have her looking like a person instead of a combatant.”

three.

Rey wasn’t sure what Phasma’s quarters would hold, but she is somewhat gratified to see that Leia appears to have had her way; the room is spacious and well lit, if sparsely furnished. There is a large bed that seems not to fit the rest of the decor, and a table and chairs in one corner opposite that. There’s also a half-open door leading to a small bathroom. Phasma is seated on the bed in full armor, which Rey imagines is ridiculously uncomfortable. She stands as they enter.

“Oh, go,” Rey says to the armed group that follows her. They do not move, and she groans. “I’ve got the Force, remember? I’ll be fine. I’ve fought worse.”

Three of them nod and step back. Poe, who insisted on joining her, makes a face. “I knew you were going to pull something like this,” he complains. “If you get yourself killed, I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t worry,” she says quietly. “I promise, I didn’t make it this far just to get roughed up by a walking junkyard.”

Poe laughs and knocks her in the shoulder with his blaster. “Stay on your toes, okay? Don’t take how scared Finn was of her lightly.”

“Don’t worry, _mother_ ,” she says, and he gives her a mock salute as he exits the room and shuts the door behind him.

Phasma hasn’t moved since they walked in.

Rey sighs. “Take off your helmet?”

This is a request, not a command. Phasma stands still for another second before lifting her arms. She unclasps the back of her helmet and takes it off, shaking her hair out again before she stoops to place it on the floor. The motion throws Rey off.

Phasma watches her silently, her only movement the slight flare of her nostrils, the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

“I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“I would rather speak to you than any other,” Phasma says. “I cannot imagine any of them would give me even a fraction of the consideration you did.”

“That’s true,” Rey says. “Some of them wanted to torture you.”

“Only some? Then you are softer than I predicted. It is the appropriate thing to do with an enemy captain.”

Rey wrinkles her nose at the words. “No it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is.”

It takes some effort for Rey not to snort at the childish back and forth argument they are approaching. “Maybe you’re right,” she says.

“I expected my request to be ignored,” Phasma says. “Why have you come here?”

“I’m going to question you,” Rey answers.

She expects some kind of sneer— _you? a child? not even an officer?_ —but Phasma nods in understanding instead. “Very well,” she says.

“Um.” Rey was ready to defend her position or her skill. Put off by this easy assent, she fumbles with what to do next. Phasma stands still and impassive, glinting in the bright light. She still wears her cape, and Rey is struck by how imposing she looks, even without her helmet. Like a warrior. Rey makes up her mind. “Take off your armor.”

“Is that a command or a request?”

“If it was a command, you’d have done it already,” Rey says, a bit too harshly. She wants to be in control, not to be rude about it. “I mean—I’d like you to. Think of it as a way to build trust.”

“Of course. After all, you’ve entered unarmed,” Phasma replies sardonically.

 _Is that a sense of humor?_ Rey touches the cold metal at her belt. “I’m trusting, not stupid.”

Phasma fixes her in a stare for a moment or two, then nods. “I’ll remove it,” she says. “To build trust.”

The chrome-plated metal proves exactly as much of a process to take off as it looks like it ought to be. Phasma slips open the metal clasps at the backs of her wrists, first left then right, and pulls off the curved plating that hold her gloves on. She drops the two pieces unceremoniously onto the floor with two solid _clank_ s, then pulls off her gauntlets and drops them as well. The segmented finger guards make softer noises against the stone tile. Two clasps on each side loosen the metal sheathes around her forearms, first left then right, and she slips those off as well. The pieces wrapped around her upper arms merely slide off.

As more and more of the neatly fitted black bodysuit under Phasma’s armor comes into view, Rey finds herself feeling more and more uncomfortable. Phasma may not be fully stripping herself, but there’s something oddly intimate about the sight. Especially the way she drops each piece of armor so carelessly, like it no longer means anything to her. Like it no longer has any purpose, Rey realizes, because without the First Order, Phasma’s armor means nothing to her. She’s not a Captain anymore—she’s not even a fighter. She’s just a captive.

It’s so oddly poignant, the way she sheds her armor and her old life in the same motions. Rey feels like she’s intruding on something deeply personal and private, a deep metaphysical metamorphosis. “I can go if you want,” she says uncomfortably.

Phasma unclips her cape and releases it so that it falls to the ground with a dry flop. “That won’t be necessary,” she says. The thick metal pauldrons unlatch from the breastplate and they, too, are dropped to the growing detritus of metal on the floor. Phasma stops and stretches her arms and shoulders, first reaching skyward then pulling them horizontal across her body.

“Is it hard to move in that?” Rey asks tentatively, watching Phasma roll her shoulders back and forth.

“My armor is designed to allow for a full range of motion,” Phasma says as she unfastens thick canvas straps under each of her arms. “But the metal makes it incredibly heavy.” She lifts the massive breastplate over her head then offers it to Rey as proof.

Rey accepts it two-handed but still gasps at its weight. Phasma watches her closely, even as she reaches behind herself to unfasten whatever holds fast the shell over her midsection. It takes a bit of work to take off this specific piece, which she rotates and then essentially pries off her body. Rey places the heavy breastplate on the ground and tries not to gawk.

“Is all of that really necessary?”

“Stormtroopers are involved in far more hand-to-hand combat than Resistance fighters,” Phasma says. “It prevents casualty.”

Rey looks away with a slight flush as Phasma removes what she can only think of as metal underwear, unbuckling her belt and sliding it down over her legs.

She sits down to take off her boots, then to unstrap the armor around her shins and thighs. Without her bulky armor, her physical form is much more apparent, and Rey watches the sinuous slide of her well-defined muscles with a mixture of envy and admiration. The last thing she takes off are the curved pieces on her knees, which are latched onto the fabric themselves.

Phasma sits cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a circle of chrome pieces, now only wearing a black bodysuit, watching Rey with that same blank stare.

“What do you want to do with your armor now?” Rey asks, tapping the breastplate gently with the toes of her right foot. “I don’t think you’ll get to keep it with you, but I could ask them to store it for you. If you want.”

“I have no need for it anymore. I have no interest or stake in what you choose to do with it.”

“Oh.”

“So. What do you intend to do?”

“I want to try to do that … memory thing. You’ve seen him do it, I think, Kylo Ren—”

“Yes, I have. His interrogation.”

“Yes. I want to try that with you, if that’s okay. It’ll convince everyone that you aren’t here to kill us all or something.”

Phasma raises her eyebrows. “You’re asking my permission?”

“Yes,” Rey says firmly. It’s a gamble, because she knows Phasma might not give it, and if so she’ll have to choose between respecting her wishes, making Phasma look guilty (which she very well might be in that case) and likely getting her locked up farther away or even executed, or forcibly attempting it, breaking whatever thin trust they’ve developed and also flouting her self-imposed moral code. But she hopes Phasma will say yes—she hopes she’ll continue to act in her best interests.

“You have my permission,” Phasma says, bowing her head slightly. “What are you looking for?”

“Thank you,” Rey says, breathing a quiet sigh of relief.

“You’re welcome. Thank you for asking my permission.”

The gratitude sounds unusual in Phasma’s mouth, and it is clear that she rarely gives thanks, she who commanded and expected those commands to be followed, demanded and expected to be given.

“You’re welcome,” Rey replies. Then she remembers Phasma’s question, and Leia’s request. “I’m looking for any orders, or any part of your conditioning—I know, that’s a lot—that would tell you to join us if the First Order was defeated, or someone ordering you to hide on the Falcon.”

“And what do you think?” asks Phasma, raising her eyebrows again. She looks innocent—too innocent, like she’s deliberately trying to be nonchalant. Rey can’t help but grin at the expression, a marked break from her companion’s usual stoicism.

“I think I’ll find that you told the truth,” she says.

“It will take a while,” Phasma warns. “I was reconditioned several times in my youth, so much of my past is no longer a part of my memory, but nevertheless there are a lot of years to cover. I know that you can skim through rather quickly, but not that quickly.”

Rey stares at her. “You were reconditioned?” she asks, incredulous. _And they took your_ memories _?_ she wants to add, but Phasma is already speaking.

“Twice, in my youth. First at seventeen, then again at twenty-one. I have no recollection of my time between those two ages, and only patches prior to the first reconditioning.”

“Why?”

“I don’t remember,” Phasma says. The corner of her lips, the one next to the scar, quirks up wryly. “We are not permitted to know, in case we decide to do the same thing again.”

“That’s … practical,” Rey remarks drily.

Phasma offers up the slightest smirk. “Many of us break our conditioning on our first missions and must be reconditioned,” she says. “I was one of those youths, as was FN-2187.”

Rey remembers Finn’s terror, how he wanted to run until there was nowhere left to go. She gulps, and changes the subject.

“Do you want to lay down for this? Since it’s going to take a while?”

Phasma nods her assent and climbs to her feet. She unfolds to her considerable height and stands still for a moment, as if considering how best to situate herself. Rey scoots over on the end of the bed, giving her extra room.

She watches Phasma move as she reaches for the energy, coaxes it to her fingers, to her mind, to the air around her. That’s what it feels like anyway: a faint thrum through her and around her, a wrongness but also a rightness. Phasma moves like a predator even when she is technically more the prey. She moves past Rey to lie supine on the bed.

Rey fights back a shiver. The Force does not discriminate by physical mass so much as by power of will, which means that she has, at any given time, the ability to control Phasma, her towering frame and incredible strength. She would not dare. Even the thought of skimming her memories unsettles her—it’s too much power, too much knowledge. She wishes there was some level of reciprocity to this, but there isn’t. And the idea is laughable, isn’t it? Swapping secrets with the notorious Captain Phasma.

She stands and takes a seat next to Phasma’s head this time, kneeling just next to her shoulder. Instead of Kylo Ren’s extended hand—grasping, taking, thoughtless—she places hers on Phasma’s face, thumb pressed into the hollow scar next to her temple. She watches the woman’s brow furrow, her lips quirk slightly down, then Phasma is blank again.

“Ready?” Rey asks. She bites back a nervous laugh, presses down a rumble of hysteria; she has no idea what she is doing, or even if it will work, but Phasma doesn’t need to know that.

“Yes,” Phasma replies, and closes her eyes in a flutter of pale lashes.

Rey finds the power and presses it forward from her consciousness to Phasma’s. She closes her eyes, shutting out all the world so she can concentrate on the brightness of her mind, on moving it forward. At first there is nothing, but then there is

four.

 _the sound of footsteps and a harsh cry. A hand in hers, then gone_ — _torn away. But by whom?_

_Rey can feel the hot blood streaming down into her right eye, and the harsh cry is a rebel’s jubilation. Her helmet is smashed. A village burns around her, and the bodies too; the stench is unbearable._

_The hand in hers was an injured companion_ — _PM-2084, who lies fallen beside her. The rebel who broke her helmet ended his life with a well-placed shot. She should kill him. Condemn him as scum. But she cannot bring herself to begrudge him his life, as he clasps his spent weapon under his arm and sprints uphill to shelter._

Rey realizes she is not Rey; there is no taut heaviness at the back of her scalp from the three loops she ties her hair into every morning. And she realizes that she is Phasma, that the throb of dull, wet pain on her temple will leave a scar that persists to this day.

There is no room for her horror in Phasma’s memory—that will come later—but she knows it is there. Did Kylo Ren feel like this in her mind?

Oh, he must have—that comment about Han Solo being like the father she never had—

 _It’s horrible._ It’s horrible. _The destruction, the bodies strewn everywhere around her_ — _the blaster makes a sound like a cross between a screech and an explosion when it fires, and when it hits flesh it makes a dull, horrible noise. Wet and nauseous._ This isn’t Rey’s place—she wanted memories, not emotions, not thoughts—

_She doesn’t want to fight. She can see the world through a haze of red, light streaming in through the cracks in her helmet. She wants to sleep, she wants to run with the panicked rebels. She can feel life streaming out of the clearing, and a dead silence around her. Her fellow troopers are such dim patches of light and life compared to the beams she sees fleeing!_

_A blast and a flash of light, and she is deafened and blinded altogether._

_She drops her blaster, imagines it falls with a heavy, reverberating thump._

_The world is not still and quiet, but her dimmed senses allow her to imagine that it is. She listens to her own respiration, to the blood thrumming through her veins. She is alive in the detritus, alive in this impromptu graveyard, and she must defend this one, true blessing at all costs_ —

_“What is your name?”_

Rey recognizes the voice though Phasma does not.

 _What_ is _her name? In a little patch of brightness in her distant, distant past she has a name, and it is warm and homey and altogether forgotten. But who dares ask?_

 _It is because her ears are ringing that she has missed the critical sound, the primal hum of tamed fire. She turns to see a young man in black_ — _barely more than a boy_ — _holding a flaming red cross in his hand._

_She has heard whispers among her fellow youths, of the man who is like a Jedi but not, of his power and his omniscience and his wrath. Of the lightsaber and the Force. The veteran troopers say nothing of him beyond his orders._

_“I have none, sir,” she says, and he rolls his eyes._

_“You have a number, idiot,” he snaps impatiently. “You all do. What is it?”_

_PM-1386. Her knees feel weak, the tremble of adrenaline from battle has faded and now fear can rise, wobbling through the backs of her arms and snapping through her ribcage. Being noticed now, in dereliction of duty, can only mean one thing: reconditioning._

_But this would be her third strike, she realizes. And though she does not remember the first two offenses, she knows that there is nothing to be done for a malfunctioning trooper_ — _three failures!_ — _but to terminate._

_“PM-1386,” she says slowly._

_His lip curls just slightly, an aborted sneer. “What can you feel, PM-1386?”_

_“Sir?”_

_He curses quietly. “Are you an idiot, PM-1386?”_

_“I am a trooper, sir,” she answers. PM-1386 is beginning to realize there is nothing she can do to get out of this situation unnoticed. She can only hope to keep her life. “I am whatever I am made to be.”_

_“You’re not a droid,” he says carelessly. “But I don’t think you’re as stupid as I thought.” The three blades retract into his lightsaber and she starts at the sudden motion and sound. He laughs humorlessly. “Tell me, what do you feel? And be honest, or I’ll have you reconditioned faster than you can say ‘_ nothing, sir.’ _” He mimics her accent in a mocking tone, and she flushes indignantly_ — _but also uneasily._

 _“I feel . . .” She decides to be honest. If he knows what she feels, there may be some value to it_ — _something that will save her, or at least redeem her failure. She knows he isn’t asking about her physical state, but something far more paradigmatic. “I feel silence, sir. Like there was once so much sound and now it is gone. The way a room feels when everyone has abruptly left.”_

_He laughs, this time with humor. “Does that happen to you often, then, PM?”_

_“I don’t follow, sir.”_

_“Well you should start to.” He stares at her for a second. “What else?”_

_“Light fleeing, sir. So much brighter than the troopers, and I could see it through the blood and broken armor.”_

_“I thought as much,” he says, and his low, round voice is sharp now, almost a crow. His brows furrow. “Blood?”_

_“My helmet, sir. I’m bleeding underneath it.”_

_“Take it off, then.” He rolls his eyes again at her hesitancy. “You’ve already broken conditioning, PM. It’s not like keeping your helmet on makes you a good trooper.”_

_She unhooks the helmet from her gorget and squeezes her eyes shut as she pries it off her head, wincing as the plastic scrapes her eyelid and the mutilated flesh of her forehead on the way up. She drops it, then tries to wipe the blood off her face_ — _no easy task, between the rough canvas gloves and plastoid hand guards that make up her gauntlets. PM-1386 takes a deep, shaky breath of unfiltered air and tries to make eye contact despite squeezing her blood-encrusted eye shut._

_He laughs at her, this time mocking. Every laugh is different, none has come with a smile. She does not like the way he laughs, how it is just an exhale through his stony face. She does not like the doleful sound of his voice. “Do you know what you are, PM?”_

_“Yes, sir,” she replies. She can feel him scanning her, even though his eyes don’t appear to move. His vision lingers on the half-healed gash across her mouth, her short-cropped blond hair, her one open eye. The way she stands tall and confident even with the fear of death upon her, a powerful commander before her, and new uncertainty within her._

_“No you don’t.”_

_“No, sir. What am I, sir?”_

_“What do you know about the Force?”_

Rey opens her eyes and leaves the clearing, leaves PM-1386 and Kylo Ren to the depths of Phasma’s memory. Her horror has space to breathe now, and between her shuddering gasps it grows until she feels like she might cry.

Is this what it means to be a Jedi? Is this what it means to use the Force? What dignifies her from Kylo Ren? What makes Luke Skywalker a good man and a hero? This is what his power looks like: subjugation, violation, terror.

Phasma’s face is almost impassive, but her right eye is squeezed shut tighter than her left. She is not as guarded with her expression as she is with her tone, Rey has noticed.

This should be right, she thinks desperately. She owes nothing to Phasma, or any of the First Order—she owes nothing to these murderers! The innocent people fleeing in the clearing, the rebel who smashed Phasma’s helmet in—those are the people who deserve her sympathy and compassion. She should not be thinking about how Phasma slips from robotic baritone to human monotone when she takes off her helmet, how her clipped syllables belie the brightness of her eyes and the way she cannot quite control her expression—the corners of her lips curl inexorably up, just as her eyebrows so easily slip from their forbidding slant to furrow in consideration.

And PM-1386 was so _terrified_ Rey can still feel that fear in her own veins, and her pain was so real, and Finn—and Finn! He left, he fled, as young Phasma certainly would have done if she’d had the opportunity, there in the clearing with the bodies and the burning village. And what about the other troopers? How many of them desperately wanted to flee and were denied that? How many were rendered monstrous by reconditioning, how many good people were made cruel?

How many people were killed when Starkiller base exploded? How many defectors like Finn were prevented from running?

 _How can I fight them_ , Rey thinks, _when I know they’re just as scared as I am? How can I fight someone who’s just trying to keep themself alive?_

“I have not thought about that day for a long time,” Phasma says. Her eyes are open now, and she stares up at the ceiling. “If you’ll permit it, I would like some time before you continue.”

“Yeah,” Rey breathes. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Thank you, Rey,” Phasma says.

Rey releases the brightness of the Force now, having been unaware she had held it this long. But even before she lets go it is whispering to her, whispering of change. Phasma cannot remember the last time she called someone by their name, if she ever did. 

five.

“Yeah, she’s _tormented_ ,” Finn says, looking sour. “She’s also evil, which is kind of the problem.”

“All the worst people are tormented,” Poe says, pointing at her with a piece of bread. “This whole ‘woe is me, I don’t know whether to kill people or not!’ thing is _so_ Dark Side.”

Rey frowns at them. “I’m just saying, what if we find a way to break conditioning?”

“You say she broke it twice?” Finn frowns back at her, rubbing his chin. He winces and puts his hand down again. “I can’t imagine how she wasn’t terminated for that.”

“It looks like Kylo Ren helped her,” Rey says, and regrets her words as both Poe and Finn’s expressions become self-satisfied. “Not like that!”

“Kylo Ren doesn’t _help_ people,” Finn says. “We all know that.”

“Used her, maybe? I mean, not to play Sith’s advocate—” Poe grins when Finn groans at his words, “—but still, I can’t imagine using an insubordinate Stormtrooper when you’re a literal Jedi.”

“Exactly! I’m telling you, she’s not some nice person under all the chromium. You don’t get to be a captain just by following orders.”

“We’ll see what I find out next then!”

“You’re going back?” Finn stares at her, wrinkling his nose. “Why in the galaxy would you do that?”

“I’m trying to see what else I can find out,” Rey says. “L—General Organa asked me to.”

“She wouldn’t mind if you didn’t want to spend your time in a murderer’s memories,” Poe points out.

Rey frowns. In the happy clamor of the mess hall, she hardly feels comfortable divulging the truth: that she _needs_ to go back. She needs to see how Kylo Ren made a monster out of a terrified and confused young woman, and she needs even more to see how he uses _his_ power—she needs to know what makes him different, what makes her power good.

That’s a little bit wrong itself, she thinks as she rolls her eyes at her two companions and snatches a chunk of bread out of Poe’s hand. She’s using Phasma’s memories for her own purposes, which is either evil or _just_ this side of not good at all.

“I can’t mess up the very first real thing she’s asking me to do,” she says through a mouthful of bread. “What’s the point of having a power if you don’t use it to help?”

“Fair enough,” Poe says, but Finn still looks unsure.

“She’s bad, Rey, remember that,” he says. “There’s a reason she was in command with Hux and Ren. And you remember him—”

“I beat him and you dumped her down a trash chute,” Rey says, grinning at him. She can’t bring herself to argue with Finn now, not when he still winces in the breeze and struggles to move quickly against the protesting of his mangled spine. These wounds take time to heal, and she isn’t about to start fiddling with his psychological scars now. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

six.

 _This time it is dark_ , and Rey has adjusted to this after a month’s worth of dark memories _, and PM-1386 no longer needs to blink in the gloom to be able to see Kylo Ren lit only by the blinking monitors behind him. He is holding his helmet in his hands._

 _“You’re doing well,” he says. And she is_ — _she’s his pet project, after all. No one begrudged him an insubordinate young trooper for his purposes_ — _no one even asked what they might be. Snoke’s massive holographic form gave her a cursory glance and told him not to destroy this one, and PM-1386 shivered. She is no Knight of Ren, but she_ is _their most worthy vassal._

_“Thank you, sir,” she says._

_This conditioning has worked. Kylo Ren teaches her to control her interactions with the Force, to hold back her attachment to life and mass and light and the warm pulse of existence so that she can become useful and subordinate._

_For this, she is suited._

_She is becoming more powerful than her fellows, who only seek to follow commands. She is granted access to the greater scheme of the Order. She seeks to fill objectives._

_“You’re going to be promoted, you know,” he says carelessly. “Above all your peers.” He watches her face closely for any movement._

_She feels nothing but suited. This will work in her favor: she will have more leverage to fill objectives. She will be able to ensure that everything goes according to plan. “Thank you, sir,” she says again._

_“I thought you might like a reward, PM,” he says. He still looks at her appraisingly, half-grinning now._

_“A promotion is more reward than I deserve, sir,” she says. “I am gratified.”_

_“But still . . .”_

And something pushes against Rey now, a dimness that she recognizes as forgetting. These memories are dark, frayed and grayed-over from conditioning. She has learned that not all memories _can_ be taken—Phasma remembers the warmth of youth, and the coldness of power. The gray threatens to overwhelm, and for a second Rey thinks she ought to let it; any memory pushed aside by Phasma’s conditioning would be considered non-essential and thus would not contain any orders that impel her now. But her _own_ objective . . . she must see what Kylo Ren considers a reward. Her fear and revulsion wait in her own mind, wait for her return so that she can feel them fully and loathe her power again. She can only now take the leverage given to her and push forward, clearing the dark swathes of forgetting.

 _PM-1386 stands in a clearing_ much like the first clearing Rey saw through her eyes _and watches Kylo Ren, not understanding._

_“You’re much less fun when you’re conditioned, you know,” he says, and casts a cursory glance around them._

_“My apologies, sir,” PM-1386 says. “I am not meant to provide fun.”_

_“I’m talking to Hux about you later. I think they went too far on you, thinking you’d still be resistant. A captain needs some autonomy.”_

_“Yes, sir. But I am not a captain yet.”_

_“You will be,” he says. “Start acting the part. It’s this way, PM.”_

_They leave his ship in the clearing, guarded by troopers. Over the side of a forested hill PM-1386 can see the markings of a village: a slight plume of smoke, a patrol ship hovering overhead, a few tall towers scattered across a small expanse of horizon. It looks moderately wealthy. This planet is more conducive to growth and settlement than the desert planets they usually raid, which are preferred by the Resistance for bases. There is a lake to their left, and in it a massive purification machine that leads up to the village with thick metal pipes._

_“If you wish to take the city, sir, I would recommend taking out that purifier,” she says, pointing to it._

_“Don’t be stupid,” he says. “Why would I want to do that?”_

_“Apologies, sir.”_

_He turns to her now, and she sees the anger in his eyes and thinks it would be best to take a step back, because the commander often lashes out in ways that are neither necessary nor suitable. “Find the Force, PM. Just reach out a little bit.”_

_“Sir?”_

_“I’M ORDERING YOU TO_ — _” He stops, exhales shakily. “Reach out, PM,” he snaps. “I want you to feel your power.”_

_She does._

The same fog of forgetting rises, and Rey brushes it aside again. She can hear from her other ears, the ones she left behind, something like a whimper. But the room is guarded—what is it—

_The world pulses around her. When she blinks she can still see the towers and the smoke and the people milling outside of her vision._

_“Take out the patrol ship,” he orders. “One shot. Close your eyes.”_

_She draws her blaster and closes them, and there the ship is_ — _the man inside of it yawns, reaches for his canteen. She pulls the trigger and his head is reduced to a spatter of bone dust and viscera on the console behind him. The ship hovers slowly forward a few lengths then bumps into a tree and falls to the ground, sliding down the hill. Its momentum is broken by the brush and trees, but it gradually comes to the bottom of the incline and falls into the lake with a gentle splash._

_She holsters her blaster and opens her eyes. Kylo Ren is halfway up the hill. She runs to catch up._

_When they reach the plateau on which the village is built, Ren leads her through its gate and along the very inside of its thick stone walls, behind the houses where no one can see them._

_“What is the objective, sir?”_

_He stops and points to a wooden building_ — _a firetrap, she thinks. A foolish thing to build in this age of terror_ — _which must be their destination. “Do you recognize this house, PM?”_

_“No, sir. I do not think I have ever been to this planet.”_

_“Think again,” he says. He grins at her. It is not a happy grin. She has never seen him smile before. “Use your senses, PM.”_

_She reaches out and finds a familiar warmth_ — _she remembers the warmth. She should shy from the warmth but she has been ordered to think again, so she touches it, feels it take her back to that place in the distant, bright past where she has a name. It slips over her like a second skin, under her armor._

_“I have been here before,” she says._

_He reaches a hand out to her and she feels him_

_SHIFT THROUGH HER MEMORIES._

Rey nearly launches out of Phasma’s skull at the feeling within a feeling.

_INFANCY A WARMTH AROUND HER THEN COLD BUT BACK TO THE WARMTH IT IS BRIGHT IN A WAY MEMORIES OUGHT NOT TO BE AND IT STAYS, HE HOLDS IT, HOW DOES IT FEEL PM? SIR IT FEELS WRONG, IT IS NOT PERMITTED, THE BRIGHTNESS HURTS MY HEAD, HE STILL HOLDS IT, WHAT IS IT PM?_

_SIR IT IS . . . MY ORIGIN._

_He releases her and she gasps, eyes streaming tears. “What was that, sir?”_

_“That was the Force, PM,” he says. This smile is real, and exultant. “Never forget its power.”_

_“Why did you bring me here, sir?” Her eyes stop watering but her head is still ringing. Her eyes still swim with vision that is brighter than it ought to be. She can barely breathe, but there must be something wrong with her helmet because she is getting too much air._

_“Your reward,” he says._

_With a slight motion of his hand the door creaks open, trailing the chain from its latch. There is a startled noise from inside, and a child comes to the door, poking its head out and staring up at them with wide blue eyes. Its hair is long and golden and falls into curls around its neck._

_He stares it down and says, “Go inside and pretend nothing has happened.”_

_“I will go inside and pretend nothing has happened,” the child says blankly, and retreats. Its voice is high like a bird’s._

_“Here,” he says. In his hand he holds his lightsaber._

Rey realizes. Rey realizes what Kylo Ren believes is the ultimate gift.

_“Sir?”_

_“Take it,” he says. “Or don’t_ — _it’s up to you.”_

_Is it really? PM thinks as she takes the saber without hesitation. It is not in my purview to choose when my commander has already chosen._

_“And PM? Take off your helmet before you go in. Let them see your face.”_

When the cloud of forgetting rises this time it stinks like blood and Rey lets it sweep her away.

Phasma does not move. Her forehead is sleek with the thinnest film of sweat. Her eyes are still closed, and her hands are once more in tight fists. She has bitten her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

Rey swallows hard against the rising tide of vomit in her throat. She regrets eating lunch. She regrets stepping into Phasma’s memory. But she does not lift her hand from the side of Phasma’s face, even though her hand is clammy and Phasma’s face is warm.

“I’m sorry,” Phasma says finally. “You should not have had to feel that.”

“Does it—always feel like that? Being in your head?” Rey feels hysteria rising like bile, and panic, and tears. She should leave the room and never look back.

“No. Your way feels better. Nearly painless, except the forgotten memories.”

“Did you really—”

“Yes,” Phasma says. “The wom—my mother recognized me. She cried. She told the child to run.” _Mother_ sounds foreign on her tongue.

“What did Kylo Ren do?”

“He congratulated me,” Phasma says. She does not open her eyes.

“Do you—do you regret it?”

Phasma opens her eyes and stares up at her. They are so blue, Rey thinks. Bluer than the lake or the sea, blue like the blue stones on Leia’s ring when they catch the light, from when she was just a princess and the universe was smaller. Limpid, like the lagoons wealthy traders bragged to her about, thinking she was just a pretty, eager scavenger.

“No,” Phasma says. “How could I?”

Rey doesn’t remove her hand. Phasma stares up into her eyes, still blank. She licks her upper lip with a quick dart of her tongue, a utilitarian motion until she pauses for half a second on the scar that traverses it. The motion reveals teeth that are stained pink with blood that seeps down from her oozing lower lip. Then she is impassive again.

“How could you,” Rey echoes. She isn’t sure if she is repeating Phasma’s words or asking a question—and further unsure which one of them she is asking.

What did she think she would find?

She remembers Kylo Ren killing Han Solo. She remembers feeling the wild joy in him even from so far away. Phasma took the saber and felt nothing other than duty.

“Are you alive?” she asks finally, staring down at her blue eyes. Something in them keeps her from shaking. “Do you feel like a person?”

“I am alive,” Phasma says. “I feel like something that lives, something that must keep living.”

“Do you feel different from PM-1386?”

Phasma twitches at the name. The thick muscle in her cheek flexes for half a second. “Yes,” she says again. “I am Phasma now.”

seven.

“Gene— _Leia_ ,” Rey says, nearly crying.

General Organa takes one look at her expression and orders everyone out of the room, hushing their protests with a single wave of her hand. For all this talk of _General_ , there is still so much of the Princess about her.

“He had—he had her kill her _parents_ ,” Rey says, sniffling back a sob. “He had her—he gave her his lightsaber—”

Leia’s expression chills over, from concern to a cold fury. She knows who _he_ is without having to ask. She clenches her hand, then unclenches it, then clenches it again and pounds it hard against her hip.

“I was—I felt what it was like in her mind,” Rey explains, fumbling over her words, racing ahead, trying to outpace the tears. “It was so empty—she couldn’t even care.” She wishes she wasn’t crying, but what else can she do? At least she isn’t crying over Phasma. Phasma would think her foolish.

“Didn’t or couldn’t?” Leia asks. She sinks into the chair she sat in before Rey raced into the room and interrupted the meeting.

“Couldn’t,” Rey says. She leans against the table, braced on one arm. Leia reaches out and covers that hand with one of her own. “That conditioning—it’s— _evil_.”

“She resisted it?”

“So many—” Rey sinks into one of the chairs as well and props her head in her hands, staring at her knees. “I asked her before I began, and she said she’d only been reconditioned twice. I didn’t realize that meant—”

“Conditioning is different.”

“So many times,” Rey says again. There are hot tears on her cheeks, and they stream down her nose and onto her fingers. A fat teardrop plops onto her knee and leaves a round splash on her pants. “She forgot so much—”

“Not to be callous,” General Organa says, leaning forward, “but—”

“She’s never been ordered to join us or kill us,” Rey says. She doesn’t say what it took to find that—how she plowed through a decade of memories and Phasma _screamed_ at the sensation, how it burst dark in her head—

 _HE CALLS HER PHASMA AND HUX GIVES HER CHROMIUM ARMOR SNOKE NEVER SUMMONS HER BECAUSE SHE IS UNWORTHY SHE KNOWS ALL THE NUMBERS EVERY SINGLE TROOPER SHE MOVES LIKE A MACHINE IN THE FIELD SO FAST SO DESTRUCTIVE SHE SLEEPS AND WAKES AND FIGHTS AND IS SHAPED UNTIL SHE IS PERFECT UNTIL BRIGHTNESS DARKNESS SO FAST THAT IT FLICKERS THEM THROUGH YEARS AND YEARS AND_ here is where Phasma screamed as the years ripped through her and Rey was so deep inside, so far outside herself that she couldn’t get out to stop it and the scream continued and then stopped and Rey only realized later that it was because Phasma bit through her lip and fisted her hands against her hips with all of her strength.

When Rey returned to herself Phasma had a mouthful of blood, and her hands were streaming as well, blood dripping onto the gray blanket from between each finger.

Rey remembered the deep, piercing nausea she felt when Kylo Ren ransacked her memory, the way Phasma’s memories twisted and screamed where he had touched them. She realized Phasma had lied when she said the only memories that hurt were the ones she had been conditioned to forget—Rey felt pain radiate out from her presence as she careened through Phasma’s memories, unable to stop her burning trajectory; it jangled along every axon in sharp, electric bursts that faded only to flare again. But why had she lied? What could possibly be worth this?

Phasma did not open her eyes, but she whimpered when Rey removed her hand.

“I’m done,” Rey said with a trembling voice. Phasma nodded stiffly, and her pale eyelashes fluttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you—find anything?” Phasma spoke gingerly, barely moving her tattered lower lip.

“No.” Rey could only bring herself to whisper. “You’re all clear.”

“Thank you,” Phasma said.

“I’m sorry,” Rey repeated.

“You followed orders,” Phasma said. “That is nothing to regret.”

But all Rey could think about was how much the years hurt.

Phasma sat up and vomited over the side of her bed in empty, heaving retches that seemed to span eternity. She wiped her mouth and eyes on her sleeves before turning back to Rey. Her lips were bloody and pale, parted as though she was about to speak. But Rey covered her face and ran from the room, ran until she found the only person she knew would understand. She ran to Leia.

In the present, Leia gives her a tentative half-smile, but her eyes are appraising. “That’s something, then,” she says. “This can’t have been easy for you—both of you.”

Rey thinks she should not divulge this unspeakable thing she has done. She should hold deeply secret the heavy shudder of Phasma’s shoulders as she heaved, the delicate veins that stood blazing red in her eyes as she turned back to face Rey, the way the years seared and screamed through her head and even Rey could not say what she felt, but knew that there was nothing in those memories that could warrant this. She bites it back, the intimate vulnerable weakness, the person behind the armor.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Rey wipes her eyes and sniffles hard, then looks up at Leia. “I mean—what now?”

“The First Order isn’t gone, not by a long shot,” Leia says. “If she’s willing to give us information, then we’ll gladly take it. And if she isn’t, well, I’m not in the practice of killing prisoners who pose us no threat.” She smiles at Rey, that same tentative wartime half-smile of encouragement she gives everyone. But there’s sincerity behind it, and Rey can only feel relief.

“Do you mind if I go back?” _If she’ll have me_ , Rey does not add.

“If you keep seeing her? It’s fine with me. I can only imagine that you’ll be a good influence on her.”

“Finn said it was—”

“The look in your eyes, yes.” Leia reaches out and brushes a few tousled strands of hair off Rey’s face with a sad smile. “You do have beautiful eyes, Rey. You can practically see the compassion in them. Luke looked at people like that.”

“Oh!” Rey remembers the map, remembers that she’s got a borrowed lightsaber in her belt and something far more important to do than dote on Phasma. She flushes with embarrassment. Leia must be tired of her strange fascination, she must be tired of waiting for her brother to be found. “Luke—I’m sorry, I know we should start looking for him—”

“It’s fine,” Leia says with a smile. “We can hold on a little bit longer.”

“But the First Order—”

“Doesn’t know where he is,” comes the firm reply as a glint of steel rises in General Organa's eyes. “We’re the only ones with a full map, remember that. And they’ll need to regroup in the face of such a massive loss. Besides, Rey, I want you here for now. I want you to train more before we send you into uncharted territory like that—I won’t put you in danger for what might be a fool’s errand.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Leia says with a snort. “I _am_ the general after all.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rey says, half unsure what she’s sorry for. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to apologize for, but it’s definitely not your fault.” Leia rubs her hand across her mouth and sighs. “Ben was lost to us long ago. It was foolish of me to think anything might change that. Foolish of Han to agree.”

“I—”

“You saw him, then. The look on his face when he had Phasma kill her parents.”

“Yes,” Rey breathes. Not after the fact, but the wild light shining in his eyes—the slight tremor in his hand when he handed Phasma his lightsaber. It had to be his weapon—anything so he could feel like it was him, like they were Han and Leia. She shudders, hard. Gulps.

“You know, then. He was lost to us.” Leia looks away, then turns back to Rey suddenly. “I hear there’s a medic tending to our captive. Why?”

“I didn’t—the memory thing, it hurt her,” Rey admits, mortified. “I didn’t realize it would. She bit through her lip—she—the blood—she—”

Leia winces, blanching pale at her words. “I didn’t know it would hurt,” she says. “I thought Ben was trying to hurt his captives. I’m sorry.”

“I had no idea—I’m never doing it again. Not after this! I could never do that to anyone—I’m sorry—”

“That’s it,” Leia says. She raises her eyebrows when Rey’s only reaction is confusion. “You’re looking for something that dignifies you from Ben. That’s it. He never shied from his power, even if it came at the cost of someone else’s pain. He wouldn’t have cared, especially if he hurt an enemy.”

“How did you—”

Leia taps her temple and winks. “I know these things,” she says. “I always know. Besides, Rey, you don’t need to be perfect in order to be good. Even the worst people are capable of kindness. What you do need to do is attempt to right things.”

“To be sorry,” Rey breathes, remembering Phasma’s lack of regret with a pang. “To care.”

Leia laughs gently at her words. “Those are optional,” she says. “I’ll be honest with you, Rey. There isn’t as wide a divide between good and evil as everyone acts like there is. Even the most deeply evil people are convinced they’re doing the right thing. The difference I see—the difference I believe in, so I can sleep at night—is that we’re trying to right wrongs and stop pain. We work so closely with the Force so we can see the impact we have on others. We’re not all perfect and remorseful and empathetic, but we are intimately connected to the world around us and know that every life we take is a life, and that life is all we have. Sometimes all you can do is keep that.”

eight.

Phasma looks genuinely surprised to see Rey when she all but sprints into her quarters the next day, barely an hour past dawn. Someone—though Rey cannot begin to imagine who—has succeeded in getting her to abandon her black attire in favor of the airy, neutral-toned fabrics favored by desert-dwellers like Rey herself: a tan, loose-fitting tunic that would fall just above the knees of a shorter woman but only reaches mid-thigh on Phasma, and a pair of warm, fawny fitted trousers which are tucked into dark brown boots. The sleeveless tunic exposes her bare arms, which are pale and corded with muscle. Her damp hair gleams white in the light, which is a mix of muted morning sun filtering in from a small window set high in the wall above her bed and the weak light from the energy cells mounted in the ceiling.

Rey steps closer, flushed and slightly winded from exertion, and Phasma stands as she approaches. “I did not think you would return,” she says. Her lower lip seems mostly healed, although there is a thick red line of new skin bisecting it horizontally.

“No?”

“You were moved to disgust and horror,” Phasma says. “You wanted to run, like FN-2187 did. Why didn’t you?” She sits back down on her bed, leaning back on her arms. It’s an easy position, almost one of comfort, except Rey cannot ignore the hard edges of tense muscle on her bare upper arms, the anticipation of motion.

“I decided not to,” Rey says. She leans against the wall opposite Phasma, thinking it might not go over too well if she were to sit beside her. “I didn’t think you deserved that.”

Phasma crosses her arms and looks away, up to the window above her bed. Miniscule specks of dust dance on the beams of light visible through its slatted cover. “You have strange ideas about what I deserve. I doubt many others in the Resistance would agree with them.”

Of course they wouldn’t. Most of them aren’t entirely convinced Phasma deserves to be alive, conditioning be damned. The overriding opinion is that evil is evil is evil, no matter what form it takes or how it is done. An enemy captain is evil, and evil ought to be punished. Rey would have agreed with them, maybe, just a few weeks ago. But now she feels slightly jealous of those for whom the world is so easily divided into good and evil. She looks at Phasma and all she sees are her eyes.

“You lied to me,” she says finally. “You said it didn’t hurt.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Phasma’s lips turn slightly downward. “It was the fastest way—a means to an end.”

“I was in your head,” Rey whispers sharply. “I felt—I couldn’t feel your pain but I felt it moving. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“If I had, would you have stopped?”

“Yes! Of course! I could never have done that to you.”

“Exactly,” Phasma says with an impassive shrug. “What would have become of me then, with no way of proving my allegiance? How many days would I have waited before a decision was made? What are the odds I would have evaded execution? Pain is a small price to pay for a guarantee. Pain is a small price to pay to protect my life.”

“We could have worked something out. _None_ of that should have happened.” Rey’s hands are trembling fists against the plaster and stone wall.

Phasma watches her, eyes slightly narrowed in appraisal. “I regret how this has impacted you,” she says. “For me, a few hours of discomfort was more than a fair price to pay to ensure my own well-being.” She pauses, then shifts her weight off her arms and leans slightly toward Rey. “When Kylo Ren entered your memories, did it hurt you? What did you expect me to feel?”

“It felt like my body was trying to throw up my brain. I thought he did that on purpose. I thought he wanted me to know his power.”

“You thought your power was different?”

“Yes,” Rey admits softly. She feels silly now, for thinking it would be. Why would it be? And the results of her delusion—their only evidence is the half-healed, ragged line of broken skin on Phasma’s lip.

“That was foolish,” Phasma says. “You place too much trust in goodness.”

“Yeah, well. There are worse things I could do.” Phasma says nothing in response to the defensive snap, and Rey frowns at the forced stillness obvious on her face and her downcast glance. This was not how she’d planned for this conversation to go. “Hey. Listen. I didn’t mean—I came here to apologize. No, to make things right.”

Still nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Rey says. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Phasma replies. She looks Rey directly in the eyes now, and Rey thinks she can see her sincerity etched across her face. “As I said, it was the best way.”

“ _No_ ,” Rey says, trying not to shout. “No! It wasn’t. You screamed, I heard you—it was _horrible_. It shouldn’t have happened.” Her fingers are shaking and her hands are too warm, far too warm and slightly damp.

“I’m sorry,” Phasma replied. “Your reaction to this was not my intention.”

“Don’t _apologize_ to me,” Rey snaps, and _oh no,_ she’s crying again, fat angry tears that cascade down her cheeks and drip down her chin, onto her clothes and onto the cold stone tile. She can’t stop shaking. It’s not _right_ , not right at all—Phasma seems genuinely contrite, really and truly sorry that she upset Rey by being in horrible pain. _What do you have to do to a person to make her like this? What did they do to you?_ “Don’t you _dare_ —”

The energy cells that light the room burst in bright crackling showers of sparks and the slatted window cover slams shut with a creak of protesting metal. Even in the pitch darkness, Rey can see Phasma flinch.

“You need to learn to control yourself,” she says. “You can’t wield the Force without the threat of destruction. It is a weakness that undermines your power.”

“I know,” Rey says miserably.

“You would cause less pain, too.”

“But Kylo Ren—”

“Kylo Ren chooses to inflict pain and to destroy.”

Rey reaches up with the Force and reopens the blinds, restoring light to the room.

“He cannot control his power either,” Phasma says.

“What?”

“He is in conflict. Surely you felt his dimness.”

Rey remembers how he faltered before Han Solo, a moment of weakness she’d dismissed as duplicity. She remembers the blood and the way he pounded his side to staunch the bleeding and dull the pain. She remembers the way his presence felt, the disturbance in the Force: a bleakness, a confusion.

“Yes,” she replies. “Yeah. But how did you . . .?”

“I feel it too.”

“Oh yeah. Right. Force sensitive,” Rey says, embarrassed. “Um, what about me?”

“A growing flame with ample fuel,” Phasma replies. "Your presence is brighter than his."

“What can you do with the Force? Just feel things?”

“Possibly. I wasn't taught anything else.” Phasma leans back onto her arms again. “It is not a skill to be taken lightly.”

“What else can you feel?”

“General Organa blazes with light that never dims. Those who surround her are pale presences. FN-2187 is brighter than I previously believed. He walks down this hall sometimes, but cannot approach this door. He is afraid of what I am and of what he might do. There are many above me, but I am the only prisoner.”

“Finn comes here?”

“Not yet. He is too angry, and not yet healed.”

Rey nods. A shower of sparks flashes along the ceiling and cascades to the ground, and she winces. “I should try to get that fixed before it starts a fire.”

“That would be ideal.”

But Rey can’t bring herself to leave yet. “I am, you know. Sorry.”

“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” Phasma says firmly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.”

“You will someday.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you.”

Phasma raises her pale brows at the confession, then nods. “Very well. I will be honest, next time.”

“Thank you,” Rey says, grinning tentatively.

Phasma looks like she might smile back, until the broken light fixture above her sends another flood of sparks to the ground.

nine.

Rey begins to visit Phasma daily, stealing spare hours from between her training sessions to race down the ancient stone stairs that lead to Phasma’s quarters. The rebel base is built on the remains of an archaic fortress that still stands strong despite eons of wear and erosion; its empty chambers function as Resistance storage. Phasma dwells between the larder and armor storage. It is, Rey has come to realize, a position of trust that even Phasma herself must surely be aware of, to be situated so close to such strategic necessities. It is a greater display of trust that General Organa allows her to spend so much time with Rey, who is fast becoming considered the most valuable asset in the Resistance arsenal.

Leia’s officers worry about subterfuge while, three floors below their feet, Rey trims Phasma’s hair with a slim pair of shears and an old metal comb, kneeling on the bed behind her so she can reach the top of her head.

“Don’t worry,” she says with a giggle, as Phasma twitches whenever the sleek rasp of metal on metal sounds too close to her ear. “I used to do this to myself all the time back on Jakku, and I _never_ cut my own ears.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Phasma grouses, but stills nevertheless.

Rey brushes the pale shorn hair off Phasma’s shoulders and onto the ground, then does the same with the scraps that have fallen onto the grey blanket they sit on. “There, see?” she announces proudly, dropping the comb and scissors next to her legs. “Better than the droids, if I do say so myself.”

Phasma reaches up and drags her hand across the hair that gradates from shortest at the nape of her neck to longer at her crown, then runs her fingers through her fringe, which Rey left long. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Rey dusts Phasma’s shoulders one more, splaying her fingers along the hard, musclebound ridges of bone. She does not finish the motion or remove her hands.

“Why do you keep coming back? I have nothing to offer you,” Phasma says.

“I like being around you,” Rey replies. It’s true; she often shrugs off Finn and Poe for these short intervals, slinking quietly through the halls and giving vague excuses so that she will not be missed, so that hopefully no one will realize her destination.

“Surely you have better companions.”

Well, _yeah_. And she deliberately avoided seeing them after her training so she could make her way down here, to these dry old rooms so far from the sun. “You interest me, okay?”

Phasma rolls her neck with a syncopated crackle of bone, and Rey does not move her hands from the pitch and tilt of muscle and bone beneath them. “I find that strange. It is mutual, but still strange.”

“What do you think about me, then?”

“I have never been particularly interested by anyone before,” Phasma says. “I think it’s because you tried to understand me. That is a rare thing in enmity. But I cannot imagine your motivation.”

“Do you think it’s weird that I like you at all?”

“Yes. You should revile me.”

Rey frowns. “That’s no fun.” Phasma doesn't like it when she's so casual about things, but she can't help herself sometimes. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to think about the galactic consequences of everything she does.

“This is war. It’s survival, not fun.”

“Your attitude stinks, you know,” Rey says, affecting a glum tone. Phasma twists her torso to look back and check her face, and rolls her eyes at Rey’s broad grin.

“Do you want me to _revile_ you?”

“I suppose not,” Phasma admits.

“But it would be smart.”

Phasma shrugs Rey’s hands off her shoulders as she stands and turns, dropping into a crouch, then farther down so she can cross her legs and look up at the young Jedi. She places her palms flat down on her knees. Part of this is restlessness; cooped up for so long in such limited quarters, Phasma tends to shift from one position to another in Rey’s presence. But Rey can tell that this isn’t just inertia struggling against stasis. She thinks Phasma might put on her helmet now, if she still had it. This deliberate distance is uncomfortable for Rey, so she slides forward to the edge of the bed and dangles her feet off the side.

“It would make sense,” Phasma says, “not to trust an enemy officer conditioned to kill you.”

“Are you still conditioned, then?”

“The Resistance thinks of conditioning so naively,” Phasma says coldly. “You talk about conditioning like programming a droid. I don’t know whether I am ‘still conditioned’ or not. If a First Order commander were to give me orders, I do not believe I would follow them automatically. But I cannot be sure. My will was built to be mine at the specification of others. I will never not be conditioned. I am not a blank memory drive which can be made and remade to any purpose. I’m a Stormtrooper, and I will be that as long as I am human.”

“But you’re human,” Rey protests. “You’re a person. A being. That has _got_ to count for something.”

“By species. By birth. I feel different now, away from the First Order. I am my own purpose now. But that isn’t something I understand—Stormtroopers are not conditioned to value their own lives or their own well-being beyond strategic purpose. So while I am a Stormtrooper as much as I am a human, I now am equally unsure how to be either.”

Rey wrinkles her nose. “Nobody knows how to be a person,” she says. “You just are one.”

Phasma’s fingers tense on the fabric of her trousers, drawing long furrowed creases along her knees. “I have spent my whole life learning how not to be a person,” she says slowly.

Rey bites her upper lip and pushes angrily past the swell of pity in her throat, which Phasma surely does not need. “Then let me teach you?”

“What?”

“Let me teach you how to be a person, then. If it’s that important to you.”

Phasma looks dumbfounded, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. Rey smiles brightly down at her, then slides off the side of the bed to kneel in front of Phasma. The added height of her thighs puts them at eye level, and she smiles again, as invitingly as she can. Phasma’s lips quirk up uncertainly—not quite a smile, but the beginning of one.

“Yes,” she says. “I think I would like that.”

Maybe, Rey thinks, they will find this ridiculous later, but at the moment it is the most deadly serious thing in the entire galaxy. She reaches out to touch Phasma’s face slowly, and she does not move, even when Rey brings her thumb up to rest in the hollowed scar on her forehead—then her lip starts to tremble so slightly that Rey thinks she could be imagining it.

“This is lesson one,” Rey says.

“What is?”

“Knowing you have value.”

“How—”

Rey kisses her square on the lips and feels colors blooming behind Phasma’s eyes.

ten.

The Millennium Falcon lands on a stony, overgrown cliffside overlooking the vastest expanse of ocean Rey has ever seen. It seems to stretch up into the sky, into the galaxy, unbound by the horizon or the sparse, distant shapes of islands. The air on Ahch-To is clean like it has never before been touched, and it feels sharp and foreign in Rey’s throat and cold in her lungs. But the land is beautiful, its lush verdancy mottled with stones and its wildness only broken by a thin, curving set of stone stairs that reach up from them to beyond the hill before them.

When Rey steps outside the ship, she feels like she is in a paradise not meant for her own eyes and ears. It is, she thinks, a fitting place for penance.

“Are you sure this is it?” Finn asks.

Rey jolts out of her trance and looks up to the top of the hill, then Looks again. “Yes,” she says. “I feel him here.” She does not say that his presence is dim, not swarmed by darkness like Kylo Ren’s but like a red giant, its cooling massive core ready to collapse to supernova or burn itself small and weak.

She knows Phasma can feel it too, and hopes she will say nothing.

“What does it feel like?”

“Bigger than anything I’ve felt before,” she says, which is both entirely honest and a horrible lie.

“His presence is greater than Snoke’s,” Phasma says. She rests a hand on Rey’s shoulder, and Rey reaches up to entwine their fingers.

Finn groans at them. “This is still _so weird_ ,” he complains. “Like, I don’t even have words for how weird it is.”

“Don’t worry,” Rey says, rapping him gently on the shoulder with her staff. “I’ve forgiven you for dumping my girlfriend down a garbage chute.”

“ _Ow!_ ” Finn makes a show of rubbing his shoulder and pulls a melancholy face. “It was _recycling_ , thanks. Have you forgiven her for nearly getting us blasted to bits by a Guavian Death Gang?”

“How was I to know they thought Han Solo was still in possession of the Falcon?” Phasma demands for what must be the umpteenth time since they encountered the group.

“I forgave her when she beat them off the ship,” Rey says.

Finn groans. “If anyone had told me Captain Phasma would save my life on a journey to find Luke Skywalker for the Resistance last year—”

 _Reconditioned on the spot_ , Chewie yelps.

Rey snorts. “I can’t believe I’m this close to finding Luke Skywalker and we’re just _standing_ here,” she says.

“Well, go on then,” Finn says, making a face.

“Can you feel that?” Phasma asks. She turns her face to the sun and inhales deeply as her hair shines almost white in its light and the long, wavy strands of her fringe dance in the breeze. “He knows we’re here.”

“Yeah,” Rey says. “Well, I can’t keep him waiting, can I?” She touches the cold metal hilt of the lightsaber almost unconsciously, wondering if it is calling to Luke now, as it called to her before.

She releases Phasma’s hand and turns on tip-toe to plant a kiss on her lips. Phasma smiles under her lips and presses a warm, steadying hand to the small of her back briefly—Rey thinks she could melt in this moment—, just until they part. Rey hugs Chewie and he squeezes her ribs so hard her vision flashes, then Finn, who kisses her on the forehead and says, “Good luck up there, Rey.”

They know they cannot join her, without ever having discussed it. Some things are sacred, it seems. In all the vastness of the universe and the thoughtless shift of power to power, of life to death, some things hold constant.

She takes the first flight of steps at an easy pace and pauses, turning back to look down at the Falcon and its crew. Finn stands between Phasma and Chewie, dwarfed by their heights and waving up at her. _Go on_ , he mouths, and something else she can’t see as the wind whips loose tendrils of hair across her face, making her blink. Phasma does not move but Rey knows she is watching, sensing Luke and tracking Rey’s ascent. Then she raises an arm and waves, just once, just to let Rey know she is waiting for her return.

Rey turns back to the stairs, to where Luke Skywalker’s presence stands in all its vastness, in all its dimness and pain. The breeze rustles through the grass and drags sand and dust from the ancient stone, and carries with it the faintest sound of conversation and laughter. The air smells like dirt and grass, loamy and rich, and each breeze brings with it the salt and cold of the ocean.

She thinks that maybe, wherever they are, her family would be proud of her. That she was right to leave Jakku and forge her own path.

When Rey turns an abrupt corner among the rocks, the stairs end on a plateau among the hills, bare to the elements but invisible from the ground. The figure cloaked in gray begins to turn, and she wonders what she will see—she imagines he might wear a mask like Kylo Ren, or have Leia’s bright determination in his eyes.

But when he turns he is weathered and his eyes are sad and sunken, and he shakes one arm, almost as though trying to hide the bare prosthesis of his hand from her sight. But there is kindness there, which she has learned to recognize; she saw it in Finn, in Leia, in Phasma, and now in Luke Skywalker’s eyes, which are the color of frozen oceans on sunless planets.

She knows now what others have told her all along is true; that there _is_ something different between Jedi, that there _is_ something that dignifies Luke Skywalker from Kylo Ren. She sees that same burden in his eyes, a torment that is not a call to the dark but a call to the light, one that he knows he cannot answer because he cannot make the cold, thoughtless universe right. But Rey can also see the difference—that he has never and will never stop trying.

Her head is spinning, from exertion in thin air but also from awe. She feels Phasma’s bright presence so far below them and anchors herself on it, on the trust she has built and the love that is beginning to grow.

She grasps Luke’s lightsaber and holds it out to him, and it hums in her hand. He stares at her, incredulous, full of regret and reluctancy but also called by the light, by the Force, to take the lightsaber from her hand and once more bring light to the galaxy.


End file.
